Thursday, August 23, 2018

About 20 years ago I began formulating a plan to establish a
site to house, publish and preserve the history of the Indian Territory
Freedmen. I constructed a website called The Estelusti Foundation and began a
series of articles not unlike what I’m doing with the www.blackandredjournal.blogspot.com

I envisioned a home for this organization in the ancestral
homeland of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen in the surrounding rural area of
Ardmore, Oklahoma where many freedmen descendants reside today. I bring this up
because now it is some 20 years later and many of the people coming online to
learn about their freedmen ancestors want to know about their history, join the
tribes as citizens and preserve their family’s history.

What many are learning if you are a freedmen descendant is
your desire to become a citizen of the nation of your ancestor’s birth is not
welcomed with open arms, yet there is still that sense of wanting to join and
embrace all of the history of your ancestors. In a way, I get it!

However, I am of the opinion we as descendants of Choctaw
and Chickasaw Freedmen can do ourselves a favor by establishing our own
institutions that educate, preserve and publish the history of our ancestors
and all we need to do is combine our resources, talents and common purpose to
that end.

We don’t need the Chickasaw nation to accept us if we accept
ourselves and each other. We don’t need the Choctaw Nation to embrace us into
their body to preserve our ancestor’s history. We can establish a site, home or
archive that will serve as a multi-functional home that will allow us to
preserve our history; become a site to host family reunions and become a viable
long lasting institution that will maintain our history as descendants of
Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen.

So how do we do that you ask? I’m glad you asked; it takes
money, group effort and establishing an organization that will leave a legacy
for the generations to come.

So I’m just throwing this out there for serious people to
consider. There is a property in the Lone Grove area of southern Oklahoma. It is
a FIVE acre site with a 1,527 square foot home (3Bed-2Baths) AND an out
building that is capable of being a multi-functioning unit for a host of things
(Only limited by your imagination.)

I’m sure there are a lot of people who are not interested in
this “project” and will immediately find ways to poo-poo it but consider the
effort people put in trying to become a member of a tribe that does not want
them? Maybe it’s time to consider another way to preserve your history and the
legacy of your ancestors?

Now I don’t know if this property is still available and
even if there were enough people seriously interested; could money be raised to
make a down payment on it for purchase? That’s not the only point. This is an
ideal piece of land (FIVE ACRES) that can be developed into an independent facility
that we could all be proud of.

Here is one other piece of information to consider. Every year a family
connected to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen has a reunion in the Ardmore
area or OKC. People from all over the country come to spend a weekend celebrating
their family history and in the process an individual could drop one to three
grand for the pleasure?

How much of that money goes back into the black (freedmen
descendant community) is negligible by all accounts. Oh they’ll leave a chunk
at the hotels along interstate 70 or another chunk at Lake Murray not to
mention the casino’s in the area. How much of that money is being utilized to
preserve the very history they come to celebrate? NEGLIGIBLE!

With your own facility and five acres, you can drop some
buildings on that land for lodging. You can hire the local people to help run
and maintain the facility at the same time providing jobs and skills that can
be taken elsewhere.

Somebody could set up a Go Fund Me or whatever it is for the tune of $100K and make it happen!

I am just throwing this out there perhaps there is someone
or a group of people capable and willing to invest in such an endeavor. I would
love to get some feedback.

You contact me privately through the email or leave your comments on this page.